Messiah Before the Foundations - Introduction

[00:00:00] Interestingly, I was at, over the last two nights, a couple of lectures from a biblical critical scholar. Genius, absolute genius. Harvard educated. Taught at Cambridge, teaches at UGA now. Actually the director of the Bible Hebrew department of some sort. Or, you know, many of these guys are guys who went to seminary or went to Yeshiva and got into looking at the word and found that there are things that don't actually make sense. [00:00:43] And then ultimately go, rather than going into the ministry route, go into the academic route and begin and create totally new, you could say insane in sometimes interpretations of Torah, but they would say what we say is insane, that it doesn't make sense. But I'm saying, everything I'm saying is based on having heard this guy last night and the night before. I was at the synagogue last night to hear him speak. What I can tell you is if in a southern baptist church in Macon, Georgia, this guy had come in and said what he said regarding the Torah and the inspiration and the exodus and all these things, not only would he have been crucified, but the pastor also would have been crucified. What's the matter letting you come in here and teach that filth up on here? [00:01:42] It's a matter with you. [00:01:45] But the thing about it is, and it's the purpose of today's message. We have a God we worship. [00:01:52] Well, we have that God, but we have some false gods, too. [00:01:57] We have some false gods that we worship. You know who one of them is? The God of the familiar. [00:02:05] The God of the familiar. If it sits right with what I've heard, what I've been told, it's good. Don't rock the boat. [00:02:13] That sometimes is not good. And today's message is sort of that way. [00:02:18] So, my yeshiva, the head instructor at my school, used to open every single class in the introduction by saying, I want you to go out today and purchase a pair of steel toed boots. [00:02:35] Because the things that I'm going to say in here are going to step on your theological toes. So you better get ready. That's my teacher. That's not what I'm saying to you. However, some of you might still have some considerations and questions. So, if I take, and I can't remember exactly where this comes from, I think it's from Grant Luton, who gave this illustration, this analogy. But it's an amazingly awesome analogy for world religions and all the different stories and the academics and all these people who put this thing. I hand a child a book, a child who cannot read the book, but the book is full of pictures. [00:03:21] And so what's the child going to do? They're going to take the book, they're going to sit down, and they're going to flip through the pictures. And from them flipping through the pictures, what will they develop? [00:03:34] A story. [00:03:35] They will make a story from the pictures. It may be nothing like what the real story actually is if you read the words, but it's their pictures, their story. [00:03:48] If I hand it to another child, given the same scenario, in a different culture around the world, same book, same print, same pictures, totally different story will emerge. But the pictures are the same. [00:04:04] God has given us the pictures. [00:04:08] He absolutely has given us the pictures. [00:04:12] The creation, the beauty, his majesty, everything shows his amazing character. But we have so many religions, people, critics, atheists, people who do not know how to read the words. [00:04:29] And so pictures become reality when they are not, in fact, supported by the text of the Bible, which is relatively important. If you plan to build your life around letters on a scroll or pages, books and letters on pages, it's important that the story is correct. [00:04:55] He gave us the Torah. He gave the jewish people the words. And they have been, as Paul says, the keepers of the Torah all the way down to today still, because I can tell know St. Mary's Catholic Church and Brother John's Baptist Church are not spending a lot of time with a Torah focus. [00:05:22] That's not a criticism. It's a real of life. [00:05:27] And nothing against Baptists or Catholics. That's not either what I'm saying. It's saying that the Torah is a foundational text to help you interpret the pictures. And we're in a place right now where some of us have a storyline. There are a whole bunch of storylines within this room. There are a lot of storylines, people who have come from this background, that background, this background, that background, and everybody brought in something, their storyline, and you know what it is. It's comfortable and it's familiar. [00:06:06] And so here we go. [00:06:09] There's a challenge with the Torah cycle. It moves fast. You can't get a lot done in a week, because by the end of this parsha, we're already into the destruction of the world, almost starting. [00:06:24] God created at the end of the parsha, or actually, it's the end. [00:06:32] I don't like it anymore. I regret that I did this. That's a lot of ground to cover in one week. I can't do it. But what I am going to do is actually spend some time in the beginning, because that's what the text says. That's also how Johanan's gospel opens up. Right. You think John had any connection to his Judaism? I mean, do you think his audience knew what he was saying when he said, when Johanan says, in archeonologos, chaologos, in Prostonteon, chaos in Ologos, Utosinon, Archiproston, Teon. First of all, John never said that. [00:07:16] He said it in Hebrew. And I know what you're thinking. It's all greek to me. It is. Here's what it says. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God. And the word was God. He was with God. In the beginning, all things came to be through him, and without him, nothing made had being. [00:07:35] That is as straightforward as it gets, right. [00:07:41] On the surface, it's by a casual read of the text and the total dismissal of the text in Genesis and other parts of the scripture. Here's what it means to most people in western religion. [00:07:59] Yeshua was there, and he created everything. And then he came down and he saved it all, because he's God. [00:08:12] Again, I'll say it. Yeshua was there. He created everything, and then he came down to save it all, and he's God. And the proof texts which are given, I just gave one. Hebrews one, one through two, one. It says, in days gone by, God spoke in many, in varied ways, to the fathers, through the prophets. But now in the Ahari Hayamim, this world, he's spoken to us through his son, to whom he has given ownership of everything and through whom he created the universe. [00:08:44] Colossians 114. It is through his son that we have redemption. That is, our sins have been forgiven. He is the visible image of the invisible God. He is supreme over all creation, because connection with him were created, all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. [00:09:07] So what does it mean? [00:09:09] Well, the assumption is that it means that Yeshua was creating the world. [00:09:20] There is a problem with that, though. [00:09:26] First of all, it's contrary to the text of the Torah, because it does not say ben Elohim Bara, does not say the son of God. It doesn't say mashiach was in the beginning creating all things. It simply says. [00:10:00] But that's easy. [00:10:02] That's easy to reconcile, someone says, because then he continues with the classic and certainly the most concrete evidence that it was Yeshua and God in heaven having a conversation about this. Has anyone heard this? Based on this text, Genesis two. Then God said, let us make humankind in our image, in the likeness of ourselves. [00:10:36] Question. [00:10:37] Yes, have I heard that? Oh, thank you. [00:10:45] And there it is. And there it is. [00:10:51] God cannot be. [00:10:55] I mean, who's he talking to? It couldn't be anybody else but himself in the form of Yeshua, right? That's what the assumption is. I've heard it described this way. [00:11:10] Yeshua was there, and God asked him. [00:11:16] He said to him, you know what this means, right? If we do this, if we create man, you know what this means? [00:11:30] Are you willing to do it? [00:11:33] And Yeshua, with his long, flowing blonde hair, nicely, perfectly formed beard, and bright blue eyes, says, yes, father, I'll do it. Let's go forward. Let's create them. [00:11:54] I'm ready, dad. [00:11:57] Problem. [00:12:01] Does God ask permission to do anything? When's the last time he asked you permission to do anything? [00:12:09] Does he need anyone to tell him what he can and cannot do? [00:12:15] Bigger problem. [00:12:17] It's day six, my friends. [00:12:22] This is to be compared to building a house, being in the final stages, and then realizing, oops, we didn't put a bathroom in, or there's no kitchen. [00:12:36] What do you mean, it's day six? God's creating the world has created the majority of it. Only now there's the recognition of a problem that, uh oh, I totally forgot. They're going to totally mess this up. We got to figure out some way to fix this. Yeshua, are you willing to do it? [00:13:04] Judaism teaches very clearly that the spirit of Messiah and that Chuvah repentance existed before anything was created in the world. How could it be any other way? [00:13:20] How could God create the world being completely sovereign, knowing that we are who we are and everything that was going to happen? How could he create the world without a plan in place before he started? [00:13:37] Who builds a building without consulting somebody who knows what they're doing? And he knows what he's doing. He doesn't have to consult anybody. [00:13:55] Problem three. It's not logical. [00:14:00] Logic has no place in the scriptures. [00:14:03] Yes, it does. [00:14:05] Because we're created logically, we think logically. [00:14:10] What's not logical? It's not logical to say, well, Yeshua miraculously came to earth in the form of a conceived baby. [00:14:22] Does it make sense that he was then in heaven being in the beginning, he was morphed into a human body, grew up, died, then went back to heaven as a man. [00:14:36] Yeshua was not in human form, hanging out up there saying, yeah, dad, let's do it. [00:14:43] That's not logical. According to what we know about Yeshua and his first coming and his second coming. But that is somewhat the perception for people. You know why? Because it makes us feel good. Like Yeshua, my messiah, the one that connects me to God. He was standing there in the beginning, and it's just always been that way. It has always been this way. It has always been this way that there would be a plan for redemption and salvation, but not like that. [00:15:19] Yeshua was there, but not in that way. And when you read the texts that Judaism in the first century forward and after would have been familiar with, the spirit of Messiah. And this term is used, the pre incarnate Messiah. Right? [00:15:44] Okay, so it wasn't a human body, but still the spirit of Messiah was there. And God's having this conversation with the spirit of Messiah about this. [00:15:56] It still doesn't actually make sense. [00:16:10] The spirit of Messiah was there. The spirit of Messiah says that. The rabbis say that the spirit of Messiah was what hovered over the, you know, is divine. There's no questioning this. Yeshua is the word. Through him, things were created. He will rule, he will reign on the earth. But I'm going to give you some food for study. [00:16:40] So all that to say, if I just glossed over that and you missed it, Yeshua is the Messiah. Yeshua was from before anything was. [00:16:53] Yeshua will reign sovereign over the earth as the messianic king. [00:17:00] But what I'm saying does not diminish that in any way. What this does is gives you a better understanding of likely what is going on in bereshit. When God says, let us do this, let us do that. Let us go down and confound them later, he says, let us. Because I hope, God willing, that you'll be able to talk to a jewish person one day, or I don't know who. It could be anybody who says, yeah, you know what? That whole thing about let us. And all this, maybe you'll have a conversation. And that would be one sticking point for somebody. And they say, I don't believe that. That undid the Bible. For me. That's a little dramatic, what I'm saying there. My hope is that by having some expanded understanding of this text, that it will put you in a great position to be a great apologist. Not saying, I'm sorry, I believe in God. [00:18:03] Here's why I believe in God, and here's something amazing about what this means. [00:18:13] God absolutely could be conversing with Messiah. He could be because he's God. I don't know everything that was going on in heaven before the foundations of the earth. But there is a different example, and there's two other theories. [00:18:40] One is the royal we. Do you know this? The royal we like. It's fairly well spoken. Queen Elizabeth, when she says something about herself to the people, we don't take kindly to that. She's talking about herself. Royal we. Okay. Majestic we sounds weird in and of itself to even say the royal we. [00:19:09] I think that's what Prince Charles sees when he changes his grandson's diaper. [00:19:25] There's a problem. [00:19:27] It only happens three times in the text. [00:19:31] That doesn't continue throughout the Bible, where Hashem is interacting with people. That language isn't used. Let us go down. Let us make. [00:19:43] There's a different theory that God is holding in heaven a divine court, that the conversation is taking place not between God and Messiah and not the royal we, but between God and the entire angelic host of heaven. [00:20:04] Well, that is ridiculous. He's done it before, and it's documented in the text. [00:20:12] It's in the text. First kings 20 219 to 22. [00:20:18] Mihayu continued, therefore, hear the word of Adonai. [00:20:23] I saw Adonai sitting on his throne with the whole army of heaven standing by him on his right and on his left. Adonai asked, who will entice Ahav to go up to his death at remote Gilead? One of them said, do it this way. And another said, do it that way. Then a spirit stepped up and stood in front of Adonai and said, I will entice him. Adonai asked, how? [00:20:51] And he answered, I will go and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets. Do you understand? What's going on? A conversation in the royal court of heaven, between God and his messengers, between God and his angelic host in Isaiah 68. Then I heard the voice of the Adonai saying, whom should I send? Who will go for us? Who's he talking to? Well, Isaiah, you could say. But Isaiah was not on earth. Isaiah was witnessing something going on in heaven. And God speaking in his court. Who's going to do what I want? [00:21:34] Job 116. It happened, and we all know this one, job one six happened that day. One day that the sons of God came to serve Adonai, and among them came the adversary, the sons of God coming in, and we realize what happens there. There's a conversation right in job that takes place. God's conversing with this host and Hasatan the adversary. [00:21:59] Psalm 89 five. The heavens will praise your wonders, O Lord, your faithfulness, also in the assembly of the holy ones. For who in the skies is comparable? Who among the sons of God is like the Lord, a God greatly feared in the council of the holy ones? What is that? [00:22:18] The council of the holy ones. [00:22:22] Is it conceivably possible that God has had conversations with the host of heaven? Well, these texts indicate that it is but only three places recording this heavenly court motif that we hear this divine address of let us, let us. [00:22:47] And it is particularly in connection with the expulsion from Eden, the creation of humanity, and then the dispersion of humanity. Tower in eleven seven in reference to the dispersal. Come, let's go down and confuse their language so they won't understand each other's speech. These are big decisions. The creation of man, the expulsion of man, the dispersion of man. [00:23:15] And those are the three times we have let us. [00:23:22] So it says, let us make man in our image. [00:23:27] Right? [00:23:34] What do we do with this? [00:23:37] What is God's image? We're commanded to not even attempt to make images of God. [00:23:46] Our image. [00:23:49] It's clear. People say it's clear. We're made like Yeshua in God's image. You know, that's what he looked like. [00:23:58] Listen carefully. What is God's image? [00:24:04] God's image is holiness. [00:24:09] The angels, in some sense, are divine. At the very least, they are conscripted into divine service, capable. Capable of being in the presence of the divine. [00:24:22] In our image. He says, let us make them in our image. Where did we come from? [00:24:30] What were we made out of? Adam. What was the human made from? [00:24:38] Earth. What were the animals made from? [00:24:44] Earth. [00:24:48] What do men, women and animals possess? [00:24:54] Nephesh. A soul. [00:24:58] Dirt made man. [00:25:00] Dirt made the blue jay. They both, it says, possess nephesh or animals. What do we have in addition to our nephesh, to our earthly soul. What in the world separates us if we're all from earth? What separates us? [00:25:23] God's image. [00:25:25] God's essence that is within you. God's Salem. God's demut. God's image within you that he did what to give you. That he didn't do to give the animals. [00:25:44] We are breathing the breath that you gave us. It's not oxygen. [00:25:51] I mean, that's what Matt Redmond's talking about, but I'm not. I'm talking about God's nishama, his essence that separates you from the cocker spaniel and the iguana and makes you special. [00:26:10] It gives you God's essence, and that is to be created Betsalim, or maybe Betsalamo. In his image. [00:26:24] In his image. [00:26:27] Nothing had been given to this point that possessed Nashama. All kinds of stuff had been made. Nothing had been given the breath of God until you came along. [00:26:43] Let us make them in our image who also shares that divine spark. [00:26:50] Well, we have God's image. This is his salim. It does not consist in man's body which was formed from earthly matter, but in his spiritual intellectual component. That's what the theological word book of the Old Testament says. Demut, we have a likeness to imply that we have a vice regent type of role. [00:27:16] I'm going to take you back to something in Judaism that the earth and the world and all that we exist in is not bad. It's not a bad place to be. It's a great place to be. And God charged us with caring for it and caring for one another and caring for the animals that we would have sovereignty over and even the trees and the land and everything. It's ours. We're supposed to guard it. So we are participating in Takun Alam now, repairing the world. That's the jewish idea. [00:27:49] So his demut, his likeness. We are co laborers with God and his angelic host. Because what are the angels doing right now? All of God's work, everywhere, all over, we see the angels sent all through the text messengers. It's a whole nother message that we could talk about who Joseph, I mean, who Jacob, Joshua bowed down to. [00:28:20] And we'll get there. [00:28:22] Not today. [00:28:26] He says in psalm eight, five eight. What are mere mortals that you concern yourself with them humans that you watch over them with such care. You made him but little lower than angels. You crowned him with glory and honor. [00:28:39] Let us make man in our image. All of my angelic host who has served me from before time. [00:28:49] I'm going to take a little of myself that I gave to you and I'm going to give to them. [00:28:56] There's no permission. There's no. Can you handle this messengers? Because it's a big deal. It's I'm going to do it. [00:29:07] They're going to be kind of like us, but not really. And not that God and angels are on the same level. That's also not what I'm suggesting in any way. [00:29:17] It says, and here is the criticism to this jewish understanding that the angels are who God was talking to. The malachim, the messengers, the angels, the Sevaot Adonai, the Lord of hosts. Here's the criticism. [00:29:37] Angels don't create, angels don't create anything. [00:29:44] How could that possibly be? Why would he have any interaction with them talking about creating anything? Angels do not possess the power to do that. It doesn't make sense. Problem. [00:30:00] Who created man? [00:30:03] God created man, but let us make him in our own image. Two different words, two different words. Let us make him in our image. [00:30:19] That means you possess certain attributes and they're going to be shared. And then the text goes on to say, and God created man in his image. Irvin, buy me a model kit. Buy me a. I used to love to build models. Buy an airplane kit. I can make it. [00:30:45] I can take all the pieces out, I can glue it together, I can paint it, I can put the decals on it, I can make it real beautiful. I can make it, but I can't create it. [00:30:55] I can't make it come from nothing. I can't make it. That is reserved solely for God. [00:31:03] So I'm going to make them like you in parts, and now I'm going to do it. And only me, I'm going to create. Na asa is to make. And we read this word bara to create. It's the same thing when in the other instances where God says, let us cast them out, let us go down and confound, you know what the conclusion of those statements is? And the Lord sent him forth and the Lord scattered them abroad. He's declaring to his heavenly host, this is what's going to happen, and I'm going to go do it. [00:31:49] Be prepared for the accompanying work that will go along with this heavenly host. [00:31:58] You cannot. [00:31:59] Created using that word barah means new conditions, birth, new circumstances. [00:32:10] This is heresy. [00:32:16] This undoes a perfect picture of the spirit on the waters and Yeshua creating and God speaking. [00:32:27] It goes against all that. [00:32:31] What it goes against is trying to frame creation according to a doctrine that developed way later on, way later. [00:32:40] It goes against and undoes this confusing understanding of something that God really doesn't require us to dismiss as unfathomable. [00:32:54] It reframes the biblical context in which the Judaism of Yeshua's day would have understood these things. [00:33:03] What it does do is it frames God in the context the rest of the word supports. I gave you other texts that guarantee that God has conversations, had conversations. I don't know what he does now. [00:33:19] Our country obviously doesn't know what he does now, but that's a different story. [00:33:25] This accomplishes a purpose that I like to talk about as we're starting off the Torah, which is to understand our messiah in his full glory for all he is and all he did and really did and how he did it. [00:33:43] Not having to create something that's this kind of romantic fairy tale that if you went up to a jewish person and said, oh, yeah, they were discussing these things in heaven, they'd say, still wonder? I don't believe in this. [00:34:00] That's as purely polytheism as there could be. [00:34:09] And viewed in the correct biblical jewish lens, what it does is it puts the proper words with the pictures, but what difference does that make? Why would you waste 45 minutes or however long you've been talking to tell me all that? [00:34:32] Well, it has a big impact on all of the texts that I said were, messiah created this in him. All things were created. [00:34:42] Clearly, Messiah was there, but he wasn't there like that. [00:34:48] No. How was he there? That's what I'd like to talk about. [00:34:53] That's what I want you to understand, because the depth of that is huge. It's galactic, it's astronomical. It's universal. It's beyond all galaxies. It's beyond all considerations how incredibly present the Messiah really was during creation. It wasn't a dumb little conversation in three sentences about, let's do this. Okay, dad. Let's do it much bigger. Much bigger. [00:35:27] And that is part of what I want to look at as we move into looking at John one, the prologue, what I read in Greek, and the creation of the world. So I said, the Torah portions move quick. We're going to be here for a little while. We're just going to stay where we are, because it's the beginning. If we're going to have anything, let's have the beginning start off right. Let's frame the rest of the year in our study, and I may as well shock you to death. Like, at the beginning, right? I may as well change paradigms and everything at the beginning. [00:36:13] So you can get mad at me and we can talk through it for the rest of the year. Just kidding. You won't. You won't because it's very powerful. [00:36:21] So I want to look soon at an expanded view of creation. [00:36:28] The Logos. [00:36:31] The word, right? John says the Logos. He calls it expanded view. What kind of weird language is that? I want to look at the creation story in concert with John, the pre existent word spoken to an audience that had no problem understanding what that meant, because they understood from bare sheet all the way to what was happening. [00:36:57] And if they did, we can, too. And here's the teaser from Isaiah 60. [00:37:02] Arise, shine, for your light has come. The glory of Adonai has risen over you. For although darkness covers the earth and thick darkness, the peoples on you, Adonai will rise and you will see his glory. [00:37:18] Nations will go toward your light and kings toward your shining splendor. [00:37:25] And the rabbinic sources say this. This is Messiah's light. [00:37:32] To teach you that the eternal. One saw the Messiah's generation and his ministry before the creation of the world hid him away under the throne of his glory. [00:37:43] Satan asked, lord of the universe. [00:37:47] Because Satan's so polite. Right. Lord of the universe, for whom is the light that is under the throne of your glory? [00:37:58] And the eternal answered, it is reserved for the one who will make sure that you are crushed. [00:38:07] The plan of salvation laid out before the foundation of the world. [00:38:12] And what else would you expect to see at the center of that plan other than Mashiach. Mashiach. Mashiach. [00:38:22] Ayah yay. [00:38:25] It's a good jewish song. We'll pick it up later. Shabbat Shalom.